


i may not have a home (but that's way okay)

by jongdayze



Category: StarKid Productions RPF, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 08:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20811923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jongdayze/pseuds/jongdayze
Summary: In the midst of the apotheosis, two survivors have a heart-to-whatever-qualifies-as-Ted's-blood-pumping-organ chat."You're a real ass, you know that?""Well, y'know what they say, you are what you eat, babey."





	i may not have a home (but that's way okay)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna be 100% honest I'm writing about these characters because I find writing about real people to be a little weird so this is sorta Richpez by proxy but also like I think their dynamics are fascinating because Ted is like the Asshole(TM) character of horror movies but Emma's also got her sharp edges too and look my favorite ship dynamic is Two Snarky Assholes/Enemies to Lovers let me fucking live
> 
> also if they really wanted Ted to be such an unlikable sleazeball they shoulda cast someone less attractive than Joey Richter I mean COME ON that pornstache is terrible but we still buy why Charlotte's fucking him right

Bill and Paul have been gone for two hours now. She's spent around an hour and a half of that time holed up in the lab, studying whatever blue shit came out of that cop's head (or, rather, watching Professor Hidgens poke and prod the blue shit while muttering to himself and telling her occasionally "Write this down, Emma!") and the last fifteen minutes on a "bathroom slash food break" that Hidgens had approved.

Of course, that "bathroom break" ends up being a "fifteen-minute breakdown in the middle of the hallway outside the basement bunker because there's a good chance everyone she's ever known and loved is dead, including Paul, who's probably tap dancing to 'Springtime for Hitler' right now while Bill harmonizes, which is absolutely the worst way one could ever go." 

Emma's sits against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest and trying to take deep breaths between the sudden and painful waves of sobs that crash over her in intervals. She digs her fingernails into her own arms to keep in her shaking, or maybe to keep herself from flying apart into a million tiny pieces. It's a losing battle, though.

It's not even a _pretty _breakdown, like the ones in the movies. Instead of a single tear running down her face while she stares at a blank wall, it's more like. Twenty-five tears. And a lot of snot. It _sucks. _Grief is a messy bitch. It's one of the few things she remembers from Jane's funeral. 

God, _Jane__._ Maybe it's better that she left when she did, rather than see the world go to pieces the way it is now. Sure, she left behind a husband and a baby and mother and father and sister, but at least a car crash is better than having your guts ripped out of you in the pursuit of hitting a high C6. 

Oh shit. 

Speaking of Jane's baby. What about all the kids in Hatchetfield? Did the aliens get them too? They can barely talk, how could they be expected to sing? 

Oh god,_ the implications._ Images of tiny bodies flash through Emma's mind like microfilm. It only makes it worse. She presses her hands to the sides of her heads and scrunches her eyes shut, as if to block it all out, all of the world, but it's as though it's burned into her brain, onto her retinas. There's a sort of high-pitched keening noise crawling up her throat that she tries to swallow back, but it's too late. Her own body's betraying her again, another round of those godforsaken sobs that she can't hold back, just lets it out, lets it out...

And it's absolutely the last state she wants to be caught in by Paul's asshole coworker, but since when has the universe cared about what she wants? 

"Shit!"

Ted nearly trips over her, the bottle of Jack Daniel's swinging from one hand as he uses the other to steady himself against the wall. He whirls around to face her, mouth twisted into a snarl as he hisses, "Hey, watch it, you dumb -"

And then, oddly enough, he stops. Almost in confusion, the angry tension fading from shoulders as he furrows his forehead and studies her with a sudden quietness that she's yet to see in the short time she's known him.

Emma tries to tie herself back together as quickly as possible, swiping angrily at the mascara that must have smudged under her eyes and scowling back. "How about _you_ watch where you're going next time, you jerk. Control your fucking longass legs and there won't be a problem."

"Longass - _what_?"

"You heard me, freak."

"Uh, excuse me, I'm not freakishly tall, you're just a fucking Hobbit." He crouches down next to her, right up in her personal space, and Emma seriously considers punching him square in the nose. Right above that stupid mustache.

"I am _not _a Hobbit."

The corner of Ted's mouth twitches into something that could be a half-smile. "You could be an elf."

"Go to hell."

"Already there, sweetheart," he replies with a sort of grim satisfaction, and with that, plops down onto the floor next to her with a sigh. "Already there."

Emma scoffs and turns her head away. Wishes he'd go away so she can go back to falling apart in peace. Maybe she could get up and lock herself in the bathroom, but crying is an exhausting activity and honestly, between her double shifts this morning, running for her life from the cops, the aliens, and the cop aliens, and then watching Charlotte get shot, all she really wants to do is curl up somewhere dark and warm and sleep.

But that's not an option, of course. 

Something about that thought makes her want to cry even more. Emma instead purses her lips and says nothing.

Beside her, Ted has uncapped the bottle of Jack Daniels and taken a swig. He shakes his head, smacks his lips, and then holds the bottle out in her direction. It's an oddly considerate gesture, one that she doesn't want to think too much about.

Emma just grabs the bottle and gulps down as much as she can, letting the alcohol settle into a sort of burning warmth in her chest, one that might almost help her forget how scared and sad she is right now. She drinks as much as she can, and then drinks a little more, before breaking off into a coughing fit that makes Ted pound her several times on the back until it abates.

"Jesus," he says. "I'm the last person who should be giving this kind of advice, but take it easy, kid."

"Shut up," she mutters, wiping her mouth. "Just...shut up, okay?" The tears in her eyes are from the force of the coughing, nothing more. "I don't need advice from the resident office asshole."

"The resident - what?" She can practically see the wheels turning in his head as he scrunches his face up in confusion. "Is that what they - wait, did Paul talk to you about me? Do I have a reputation? Man, that's cool, I guess that's kind of like being a celebrity."

"No, jackass, Paul never said anything about you," Emma rolls her eyes. "I just put two and two together. The fact that you told me to 'beat it' back at the garbage cans, all that shit you said about Bill's daughter."

She sees him visibly tense at the mention of that confrontation, a slight tick in the jaw. It spurs her on, emboldens her. Maybe it's well-deserved, or maybe she just wants to see someone hurt just as much as she's hurting right now.

"I mean, seriously, who _does _that? What kind of cold-hearted bitch do you have to be to say something like that? Where's your fucking humanity?"

"It's with the rest of humanity," Ted says sharply. "It's fucking dead."

When she looks back at him, he's not looking at her, instead staring down the floor, at the blood-smeared trail that Charlotte's body had left when they dragged it down the hall towards the lab. There's something there, something she can't quite put her finger on, something that's not quite regret or guilt, but something like.

Grief.

If she was to look in a mirror, maybe it's something she'd see on her own face as well.

"Were you -" Emma starts, slowly putting the pieces together.

He jerks his head in something akin to a nod. "Yeah. We were sleeping together." A tiny sardonic smirk, though it seems to be more at himself than anyone else. "Her husband was banging basically every broad in Hatchetfield. There was no way she didn't know, she just didn't wanna admit it. I was just the Band-Aid, y'know?"

"Did you ever actually care about her?"

A derisive snort. "What? No. It was just sex, plain and simple."

Emma hears him saying one thing, but he still refuses to look at her. She notes that his tie has been loosened, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his eyes red from something that might not just be the alcohol.

_Lonely. _That's the first word that comes to her mind. Lonely and sad. 

What she ends up is saying, "You're a sleazeball."

"Ha." He rests his elbows on his knees and cards a hand through his hair, as though trying to wipe away any other impressions or thoughts from his mind. "Yep. That's me. Loud and proud."

"You are, you know, you..." Emma bites her lip, tries to scramble for reasons why she shouldn't feel anything akin to pity for this guy. "You're just. Selfish."

"Selflessness and survival are mutually exclusive," Ted shoots back, sounding more tired than anything. "Look at Paul."

"Paul went because he's a good person -"

"Paul is dead and you know it." The words aren't delivered as cruelly as they could be. More matter-of-fact than anything, like a minor annoyance, the same way one might remark that it's just started raining again. "Don't come at me with all that 'hope' bullshit, I know you. You never wanted to sing any time I tipped you at Beanie's, I don't know why you insist on trying to remain optimistic when the world's already fallen to fucking pieces." 

Maybe that's what does it. The reminder that, yeah, she's a realist. That she's never been in denial of things she already knows, like that her sister died too young and she's wasted too much of her own life on meaningless pursuits that only left a string of half-coherent memories and an emptiness in her chest where things like family and friends should have been. Things like now that emptiness will never be filled, because everyone who could have filled it is gone, now that the world is falling to pieces outside and this is what shatters Emma back into a million tiny little pieces once more.

Her face is wet again - honestly, it probably never dried in the first place. At least she manages to stay quiet this time, purses her lips and stops the whimpers in her throat before they can escape. She fixes her gaze on a spot on the wall, refuses to look away until this storm passes and the rain ceases to fall and the tears stop.

She's not even cognizant of the fact that she's been digging her nails into her wrist, trying to anchor herself in this sea of grief, until someone else's hand slowly pries her fingers away.

Startled, Emma twists her head to see Ted, his gaze fixed on her hand. He wraps his fingers around her wrist, over the tiny pricks of blood, preventing her from scratching more at herself, and slides his other arm around her back. As he slides in closer, Emma wonders at that her first instinct is to lean in, not away. He's warm, the presence of another body comforting.

She can almost hear his heart beating. Emma leans her head against his chest, confirms it. 

"I'm sorry," she hears him mumble against her hair. "I'm an asshole."

"Yeah, you are." She sniffs. Later, she'll credit this moment of weakness to a long and shocking day, the inherent need for human comfort. Trauma bonding, nothing more. It could have been anyone. "And I hate you."

"Feeling's mutual, Ellie."

"It's -" She stops herself. Wonders if it will hurt more to confirm or deny, wonders if it even matters anymore. In the months after the car crash, she used to wish that she could have switched places, given Jane more time, whatever that would have meant. Now she wonders if that's still a trade she would have taken. If it even still matters. If she wants it to. 

She could tell Ted about this, could tell Ted all of this. But she's tired. So tired. And in five minutes, Professor Hidgens will be calling after her again, and he'll need help dissecting Charlotte, and Ted will go back to his binge-drinking and raving at the world that left them in this mess, and she will be keeping her hands and mind busy enough that she won't have time to think about all they've lost which is everything.

Five minutes. Just five minutes of sleep, of peace, of forgetting, is that too much to ask?

"You were saying something?"

"Nothing." She shakes her head. "Nothing. Just couldn't believe you remembered my name."

"Ha. Knew it started with an E."

She can feel his slight exhale, the tightening of his arms around her. He's not a good person. She knows this.

But it's enough for now.

Emma leans closer, listening and concentrating on the heartbeat that she knows is there, lets it be the guardrail, the assurance that at least here, right now, she is not alone. It's a different kind of rhythm, a different kind of music. One that she doesn't mind as much. 

Ted breathes. Emma closes her eyes and, finally, lets herself go. 

**Author's Note:**

> yo what the fuck is this even


End file.
